Social media went into a frenzy when the first trailer for The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes showed Rachel Zegler’s Lucy Gray Baird mockingly curtsy the same way Jennifer Lawrence’s Katniss Everdeen did in The Hunger Games.

The curtsy is an iconic moment in the first film of the franchise and marks one of Katniss’ earliest signs of rebellion. It takes place after she shoots an arrow directly into a viewing room with Capitol residents who have come to watch the new tributes hone their talents in training before entering the 74th annual Hunger Games.

For Lucy, it comes after she is reaped for the 10th annual Hunger Games as one of the tributes from District, who goes on to become its first victor — and only victor until Haymitch Abernathy (Woody Harrelson in the first franchise) and eventually Katniss and Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson).

Prequel director Francis Lawrence,...